You may want to skip the introduction by the publisher of Shareable, Neal Gorenflo, by scrolling down to Chris Carlson's first question: "Who did you write Rebel Cities for?". In his introduction Gorenflo goes to great pains to explain why he is featuring Marxist views at his website and to reassure readers that it is okay to read such material ("Harvey stands for something as American as apple pie.") This is probably necessary for many US progressives who have been subject to so many decades of anti-Marxist thought control; however, for those of you immune to such indoctrination, this reassurance is unnecessary.
I don't agree with all of Harvey's views, but they do provide much food for thought. One place where I take exception is what I regard as an incorrect conception of the capitalist state (he approves of some elements of it) and that some coercive state organization needs to be maintained in his vision of the future: views which is revealed in this quote from his book and his answer to Carlsson's followup question:
[Harvey quote] "How can radical decentralization — surely a worthwhile objective — work without constituting some higher-order hierarchical authority? It is simply naïve to believe that polycentrism or any other form of decentralization can work without strong hierarchical constraints and active enforcement."
[Carlsson] Do you think the state, currently a wholly-owned project of “the existing democracy of money power,” can be made to serve other interests than capital accumulation and economic growth?There can be higher levels of coordination without a hierarchical system of enforcement. "Hierarchy" is by definition a centralized command structure that serves and answers to the highest level, to people who constitute a ruling class. That's the way the Soviet Union was constituted and its command structure served the interests of the nomenclatura. It appears that Harvey cannot imagine a command structure that is directed from the grassroots to the highest coordinating bodies.
